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Chapter 9 A PUP AT WALK.-IMPERIAL JOHN.

Word Count: 1980    |    Released on: 06/12/2017

viz. a bright blue coat with gilt buttons, a light blue scarf, a buff vest with fawn-coloured leathers, and brass heel spurs, ca

and along the range of undulating Heathmoor Hills, as well for the purpose of enjoying the breeze as of seeing what was passing in the vale below. So he tit-up'd and tit-up'd away, over the sound green sward, on his flowing-tailed ste

he had not been too busy looking abroad; and she had just had time to effect the descent as he approached. She was now sauntering along as unconcernedly as if there was nought but herself and her horse in the world. His lordship started when he saw her, and a crimson flush suffused his healthy cheeks as he drew his reins, and felt his hack gently with his spur to induce him to use a little more expedition down the hill. Cupid-without-Wings put on also, to open the rickety gate at the bottom, and his lordship telling him, as he

d start of astonishment. "No, sir, I have not," continued she h

the other day," observed his lordship, h

er pretty lip; "my horse is not so easily startled as that;

h at his lordship's hack's silver mane, which afforded him an

aying, she touched her horse lightly with her gold-mounted whip, and in an instant she wa

inal

ly to meet her again to go home more subjugated than ever. And so what between Miss de Glancey out of doors and Mrs. Moffatt in, he began to have a very unpleasant time of it. His hat had so long covered his family, that he hardly knew how to set about obtaining his own consent to marry; and yet he felt that he ought to marry if it was only to spite his odious heir-old General Binks; for his lordship called him old though the General was ten years younger than himself; but still he would like to look abo

his head, and make him set up for what he called "a gent." He built a lodge and a portico to Barley Hill Farm, rough cast, and put a pine roof on to the house, and then advertised in the "Featherbedfordshire Gazette," that letters and papers were for the future to be addressed to John Hybrid, Esquire, Barley Hill Hall, and not Farm as they had hitherto been. And having done so much for the place, John next revised his own person, which, though not unsightly,

s. He sat bolt upright, holding his whip like a field-marshal's baton, on his ill-groomed horse, with a tight-bearing rein chucking the Imperial chin well in the air, and a sort of half-defiant "you'd better not laugh at me" look. And John was always proud to break a fence, or turn a hound, or hold a horse, or do anyth

Barley Hall free so far as the petticoats were concerned, and his lordship little knowing how well she was "up" in the country, thought this great gouk of a farmer, with his plate in his drawingroom, might come over the accomplished Miss de Glancey,-the lady who sneered at himself as "a mere fox-hunter." And the wicked monkey favoured the delusion, which she saw through the moment

hat he presently blundered out an offer, when Miss de Glancey, having led him out to the extreme length of his t

discovered his meaning. "O, Mr. Hybrid!" exclaimed she for the third time, "you-you-you," and turning

, when he was suddenly brought up by such a withering "Si-r-r-r! do you mean to insult me?" coupled with a look that nearly started the basket-buttons of his green cut-away, and convinced him that Miss de Glancey, at all events, could withstand him. So

dent), she pouted and frowned at the "mere fox-hunter," and intimated

that he should begin hunting the first Monday in November, and if Mrs. Pringle's son would come down a day or two before, he would "put him up" (which meant mount him), and "do for him" (which meant board and lodge him), all, in fact, that Mrs. Pringle co

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“This delightful Victorian novel, beautifully illustrated with woodcuts by John Leech, follows the romantic exploits of two generations of the Pringle family. Miss Emma Willing is a humble seamstress who makes a good first marriage to Mr. Billy Pringle, the result of which is the hero of the story, their son Fine Billy. After the untimely death of her husband, Mrs. Pringle secures the launch of her son into polite country society by the Earl of Ladythorne. Once ensconced in the countryside, Billy soon forgets an early dalliance with a serving girl and finds himself immersed in the world of fox hunting, and courted by local society, including the Miss Yammertons. Filled with colorful and humorous characters, this book presents an affectionate but irreverent view of country life for the wealthy Victorian.”